Key Takeaways
- Persuasion is intentional communication designed to get another to persist, resist or change an attitude or behavior.
- Persuading depends on understanding your audience’s promoting as well as resisting attitudes and behaviors.
- Persuasive appeals can be made through effective use of:
- Emotion (use emotional / personal evidence)
- Logic (use factual / impersonal evidence)
- Credibility (use educational / experiential evidence)
- Appeal to conventional wisdom (use broadly accepted evidence)
Explore Further
optional exercises for further reflection and practice
WATCH
- “How to Speak So That People Want to Listen” by Julian Treasure (Ted)
- “How to Ace Public Speaking” by Carmine Gallo (The Upgrade Podcast – listen only)
READ
- “Change the Way You Persuade” by Gary A. Williams and Robert B. Miller (HBR)
- “A Checklist for More Persuasive Presentations” by Dorie Clark (HBR)
- “Finding Your Voice: Why Confidence is Key to Persuasion” (Wharton)
- “How to Give a Killer Presentation” by Chris Anderson (HBR)
- “Going from Suck to Non-Suck as a Public Speaker” by Peter Sims (HBR)
- Speech Transcript: WeWork’s New Chairman, Oct 2019 (Vox)
- “Tips and Techniques for More Confident and Compelling Communications” by Matt Abrahams (GSB)
- “The Scientific Way to Win Any Argument … (and Not Make Enemies)” by David Hoffeld (FastCompany)
- “More Info Doesn’t Necessarily Help People Make Better Decisions” by Stevens Inst. of Technology (ScienceNews)
DO
- Imagine that you have been asked to give a toast at a 10th reunion gathering with your fellow Stanford alumni. Prepare and digitally record yourself delivering a 3-4 minute toast reminiscing about your time at Stanford, and describing why it was valuable for you.
Build Your Checklist
this list grows throughout the academic quarter
- Create my Anxiety Management Plan (AMP) and use when speaking publicly
- Define my audience and speaking goals:
- Who am I speaking to?
- What are their needs?
- What I want them to think, feel or do differently after hearing me?
- Choose and apply an identifiable structure, such as:
- What, so what, now what?
- Problem, solution, benefit
- What is, what could be, new bliss
- Create a powerful opening and closing
- Create transitions that:
- Re-summarize prior section
- Introduce next section
- Signpost overall structure
- Develop my persuasive strategy and content, incorporating:
- Data
- Testimonial
- Personal experience
- Storytelling
- Prepare visual aids that pass the “billboard test,” reinforcing structure and story:
- One big idea per slide
- Quick impact
- Clean and crisp
- Practice and digitally record my talk repeatedly, refining:
- Visual delivery: Stance, movement, gestures, eye contact
- Vocal delivery: Volume, dynamics, pace, tone
- Verbal delivery: Conversational, vivid words, avoid fillers
- Plan and prepare for Q&A:
- Anticipate and eliminate the need for some questions, by building responses into presentation
- Practice Q&A handling as part of overall preparation
- Use ADD structure (Answer, Detail, Describe relevance / benefit)